And Then There Was Three
by anna.burks.39
Summary: Jonas and Kira never doubted that they wanted to be parents, but that doesn't mean it's going to be any less challenging...
1. Announcement

I decided that first I would tell Father, I can't really put a finger on why, but to me it seems that telling him would be easier than telling my husband. So when my hunch is confirmed I decide to go straight to Father's small homeplace, at the edge of Village, instead of my own homeplace where my husband would be no doubt working away on some papers or advising a villager on some issue.

My father's homeplace, which I had shared briefly with him when I had first arrived here, a young woman of nineteen, was starting to look as old and weary as it's sole inhabitant. The paint on the wood was starting to chip and peel away, the door was hanging crookedly, the garden in the front was in desperate need of weeding. Of course, my father was blind and therefore didn't seem to be aware of the somewhat decrepit and falling apart state of his homeplace, but even if he still had his sight I doubt that much would get done about the house. My father was simply getting to old to be able to keep up with stuff like that. My husband and I had repeatedly invited him to come and live with us, but he politely refused us each time.

"I wouldn't want to be a burden" he'd say with a laugh.

"You wouldn't be a burden dad" my husband would insist, "We would be honored to have you live with us."

My father would chuckle "I would to be a burden, I would interrupt your already established schedule, and I would require help and assistance. No, no, don't bother, I'm just fine living here by myself."

But I fear that he wouldn't be fine "by himself" for much longer. He was going to have to admit that he needed help sooner or later; hopefully he'd do it sooner.

I knock lightly on the crooked door and can hear my father moving about the house. In a second the door is flung open.

"Who is it?" my father asks, smiling as he always does. The elderly man doesn't know the meaning of the word "stranger". To him everyone is an old trusted friend.

"It's me father" I say, watching as his grin grows bigger.

"Kira!" he says excitedly, reminding me somewhat of a young child being given a candy or sweet treat. He swings open the door wider and steps aside "Won't you come in?"

"Thank you" I say and step into the tiny dim homeplace. It's the same as it was when I had lived here, father had refused to move even one piece of furniture, but probably considering his sightless state this was for the best. My father had every inch of this house memorized and could move about with ease, moving furniture around meant having to re-memorize where everything was, and that would be no easy task for an older man. I look around; spying the old tapestry I had made him a long time ago that hung on the wall of the sitting room. I had made the rug in the sitting room as well, though I hadn't taken near as much time on it as I had the tapestry. The rest of the furniture was pretty standard, a couch, two chairs, a table in the center, things my father had either been given when he arrived here and was given the homeplace, or that he had obtained from the furniture maker. It was a well lived in room, though it was somewhat dusty.

"What brings you here my dear?" Father asks me lightly, closing the door behind me and guiding me to the old couch to sit. I do so, rather nervously.

"I have some good news father" I tell the old man, as he settles down beside me.

"And what good news is that?" the old man asks. "Are you and Leader going to finally start trying for another baby?" He's been pestering us about that for months now, about having grandchildren.

"No" I say grinning "Even better."

"What is it?"

"I'm pregnant"

Father's ruined eyes are still able to light up in excitement "Kira! This is wonderful news!" he leans forward and takes my hands, squeezing them "I didn't even know you guys had started trying again!"

I laugh "We weren't" I admit "It just kind of happened. You know how it goes."

Now it's Father's turn to laugh "The fact that you're here is proof that I do." He says "Are you absolutely positive that you're pregnant?"

"Yes" I say "I was showing all the same signs as last time, you must have noticed some of them-

"No, but the boy Gabriel was over here yesterday, he and Nathaniel were fixing a leak in the roof, and he did say that he'd overheard Leader telling Mentor you weren't feeling well lately, and that you were always tired now."

I roll my eyes, wishing my husband wouldn't feel the need to share my morning sickness with everyone in Village. Even though it was true, for about two weeks now I'd been waking up to horrible bouts of nauseous ness, ones that required a bucket to be placed by my side of the bed because my leg made it impossible to reach the outhouse in time. And even when the sickness passed I was still left feeling entirely drained and exhausted. I'd been basically dozing off and on for the past week and a half.

But these were only two of the "tale-tale" signs that something wasn't quite right. I also had noted a sudden increase in my visits to the bathroom, not to empty my stomach of it's contents but to empty my bladder instead. Then there was my breasts, which were not only extremely sensitive but also extremely sore and even…. bigger, or at least swollen. Leader had actually been the one to point that out to me, since I paid little attention to my boobs, or really, more accurately, the size of my boobs. Leader had also pointed out how emotionally unstable I'd been lately. My moods were constantly changing, I'd wake up in the morning giggling over nothing and within five minutes I was shouting at someone or something, and give me five more minutes and I was sobbing. "A little early for this isn't it?" Leader had asked me when I had burst into tears over a book I was reading last week. He knew that I got like this for a day or two before my monthly bleeding cycles, but as he guessed that wasn't due yet.

And then it was due and it didn't come, and my already present suspicions grew into a gut feeling. Fearful at first, for I had already gone through this once before, and lost the baby four months in, I had hoped that this wasn't the case, that it was something else. But the more I dwelled on it the more it seemed the only option. Leader and I hadn't been trying for another baby, but we certainly hadn't been taking any precautions against it either. And if I was doing my calculations correctly, we had had sex (multiple times) on my fertile days. Still I wanted to be sure before I jumped to any conclusions, so this morning, after my daily wave of morning sickness had passed, I had lied to Leader and told him I was going to go to Market and then have lunch with Jean, and instead had gone to Herbalist to have my suspicions confirmed. I was pregnant.

"Leader should be careful what he says around Gabe" I tell my father now with a laugh "The boy has never been able to keep his mouth shut."

Father laughs in agreement "He's a good boy though, a bit a self-centered and arrogant I'll admit, but he means well, he won't spread malevolent rumors I'm sure."

"Well it doesn't matter I guess" I say "Everyone will know soon enough, it's not as if pregnancy is something you can hide."

"No it's not" Father agrees, "Anyway, what did Leader say?"

I wince "I haven't told him yet"

"You haven't?" the old man's eyes widen. I shake my head, and then remind myself that he can't see me.

"No" I say, "I came straight from Herbalist's here."

"Well what are you waiting for?" Father asks, "Go tell Leader! For goodness sakes child, he's the father isn't he? He should be the first to know, not me."

"I'm a little scared," I say quietly, looking down at my hands, the joy I had felt just moments ago sharing the news with my father, was now replaced with a sobering fear.

"Why?" Father asks "Won't he be thrilled?"

"Oh most certainly, that's not what I'm afraid of. I know how much he wants to be a father"

"As much as his wife wants to be a mother?" Father teases lightly, making me smile a little. Father, more than anyone else, knew how badly I yearned for motherhood. Ever since I had been a young girl living in my old place, I knew I wanted to be a mom. Though while I had lived in my old place I had been made to believe that that would be impossible for me. Crippled women didn't marry, and they most certainly didn't reproduce. All that changed when I came here however, here I was allowed and even encouraged to marry and have children, if that was what I wanted.

"We've seen women with greater disabilities than yours who were wonderful mothers" people told her "and we've seen perfectly healthy, strong women who shouldn't have ever had children."

So when Leader and I had grown close enough to recognize that we loved each other and wanted to spend the rest of our lives together, and he proposed marriage to me, I had grown excited. For the first time in my life I was happier than words could describe. I had my father, a man I loved and who loved me, and the very real possibility that soon enough I would get the family I always dreamed of. Leader and I had hardly waited more than a few months before we started trying to get me pregnant.

That was why it had been so hard when I'd lost our first baby I think. We'd been trying so hard, and we'd been so excited and eager to be parents, and suddenly in one night it had all been taken away from us.

People kept telling me that it was going to be all right, that it happened often. Women lost babies and then went on to have many perfectly healthy ones later. That this didn't mean I couldn't be a mother. "You and Leader are still young" the women would say, "You have plenty of time to try again."

But I hadn't wanted to "try again". I had wanted my baby back, wanted to feel it growing inside of me, wanted to feel it move and kick and live. But no amount of wanting ever brought someone back to life, I had learned that the hard way with my own mother and then later with Matty, so eventually I picked myself back up and moved on. But I couldn't deny that I wasn't still hurt. I shied away from all baby talk, and dodged all the "when are you and Leader going to try for children?" questions. I had assured myself that when the time was right it would happen, that I didn't need to try to force it to happen. It would only make it all the harder if I miscarried again.

"So why are you scared to tell Leader?" Father is asking me. I shake my head, clearing my thoughts.

I take a deep breath, a strand of my dark hair falls in my face and I tuck it behind me ear "Because I'm afraid that I'll lose it again" I say "He was so heartbroken when I lost the first one. It was a boy, did he ever tell you that?" Father shook his head. "Well it was a boy, and it nearly killed him dad, to have to go and bury his son."

"It would be hard for any man" Father says bitterly "It was hard for me."

He was talking about Matty, his adopted son, my adopted brother, who had died four and a half years ago. He still struggles with the boy's death. The grief had taken it's toll on the man's body, so it was no longer strong and self sufficient but weak and frail. He was now unable to do any physical labor. Now it was the young men who came and did his hard work. It was disheartening for me to have to see him withering away like this. He was all I have left from my old family. Mom and Matty had been taken from me to soon; I wasn't ready to lose my father too. Not yet anyway.

"Father I don't want him to go through that again." I blurt out at last "Can you just imagine having to bury another one of your children?"

My father looks hurt "Don't say that" he says harshly.

"I'm sorry"

We sit in silence for a moment. Finally he says, "Just because you lost your first child doesn't mean you'll lose this one."

"I know" I say "But it doesn't mean I won't either."

"That's no way to think Kira, and it's no excuse for not telling your husband."

I shift uncomfortably on the couch. "I know."

"He's going to find out sooner or later anyway."

"I know"

"So why put it off? Go tell him."

I don't move.

"Kira"

"You said Gabriel was here yesterday?"

My father sighs "Yes, he was fixing the leak on my roof. He got into trouble again I think, and this was his punishment."

"Gabe's always in trouble dad, the day before yesterday he had to weed my garden because he and Simon took some of Alexandra's plums from her tree without asking."

"When he and Leader first came here, we didn't have any problems with him. He was so easy-going, and gentle. He'd follow Leader around everywhere; it was like he thought the boy was his father or something. I just don't know what happened to him."

"He's just rambunctious" I say "Matty was the same way, actually he was worse. Gabe isn't violent, nor does he lie, I've heard him swear once or twice, but nothing like Matty did when he was young! Gabe's a little selfish and reckless but he has good role models, and everyone agrees he's getting much better, he'll be fine."

"Leader was little mischievous himself when he was younger too." Father confides.

"I think most boys are" I say "Girls too, it's just natural."

"You weren't, were you?"

"No" I admit "But I couldn't afford to be. They were already looking for an excuse to leave me in the fields. I had to always be very careful and obedient. At least until I was brought to Edifice, and by then I was to old for such foolishness."

Father smiles at me, proud of all my accomplishments. He's always bragging about me to the other Villagers, which is embarrassing.

"But perhaps if I had been born with two straight legs I would have been naughty, I was always cunning, and a bit manipulative."

"But you are so dedicated to doing the right thing" Father argues.

"So is Leader, and you said he was mischievous."

"He had bad influences" Father says with a wry smile.

"So would I, if I had been a normal child." I remind him. He sighs again, no doubt recalling the harsh world that had once been his home.

"Yes you would have" he agrees "To be honest I'm rather glad you were born with that leg."

"Me to" I admit, laughing.

We sit quietly for a while. Outside I hear the loud laughing voice of Father's neighbor, calling a cheerful greeting to another Villager as they pass. The neighbor, her name was Cheryl, had recently announced that she was pregnant again. This would be her third and final child, she had told me. Hearing her chatter away with her friend reminds me of my own current situation, not that I had really forgot it.

It reminded my father too. "Go tell him Kira" he says suddenly, nodding to the door. "The sooner you do the sooner you two can start celebrating."

He's right, of course he's right. I should go tell Leader, no matter how scared or nervous I was. I sigh, we get up from the couch and I hug my father goodbye.

"I'm so happy for you dear" he tell me as I make my way out the door "You and Leader are going to be wonderful parents."

I pass Gabriel and his friends playing some sort of ball game as I make my way home. The boy spots me walking by and waves, but is to absorbed in his game to stop and talk to me. That's fine with me though, I don't need any more detours anyway, and Gabriel would only be a HUGE detour. The boy could talk your ear off.

So I leave the boy and his game and continue on my way to my homeplace.

One of the many perks to being Leader's wife was that you got the biggest homeplace in all of Village. It was two stories, which wasn't unusual in Village, many houses were two stories, but with towering ceilings and large spacey rooms it managed to put all the other two-story houses to shame. Leader was given the house as an eighteenth birthday present by the members of Village, along with the name and title of Leader.

"It took me a long time to get used to being in such a big house." Leader had said, laughing. "Before then I had lived in the Boys Home with the other parentless boys, and they had us all sharing these tiny dormitories with at least three other boys. It was weird to have so much room all to myself."

It had been strange for me too, though I wasn't alone when I moved in. I'd never lived in anything nearly as big. My childhood cot was little more than a room with a kitchen pushed to the side, I'd been confined to a room at Edifice and the cot they gave me after my work at Edifice was done was about the size of Father's homeplace. I can still recall the awkwardness I had felt those first few days I tried to memorize where all of the rooms were located, and what each room held. Now however it couldn't have been easier for me to navigate, the house had become my home, and honestly, the idea of leaving it for one of the many smaller homeplaces did not appeal to me at all.

"You've been spoiled!" Leader would tease me; unlike me he still didn't like this house and wouldn't mind giving it to another family. He's probably right, I'm a little spoiled now. But it's his fault; he's the one who did all the spoiling.

"Hello?" I call up the stairs upon entering. "Anybody home?"

"Kira?" Leader shouts down the stairs.

"No it's Tyrone!" I call sarcastically. Tyrone was Leader's childhood friend, he was a tall powerful dark skinned man who possessed a deep baritone voice and enjoyed making wise cracks.

"Ha, Ha" is Leader's reply "I'm in the study"

_As if you're ever any place else_. I think with a roll of my eyes. Leader was dedicated to his job. From the moment the man woke up in the morning till the moment he went to bed long after I already had, he was working. People had warned me, when we had announced our Intention to Wed, that our marriage might be a hard one to work with. With Leader's primary concern being the welfare of Village it might feel like he didn't have any time for me. I had reassured the people of Village that I was aware of all of this, and that I was sure it would be fine.

Our marriage had had a few bumps in the road, as every marriage does, but we'd always took the time to work on our issues and fix what had gone wrong. It had only been four years since we had said our I do's, but so far there hadn't been a day that I had ever regretted marrying him.

Though I wish he'd come out of that study more often.

"Come down here!" I shout back up "I've got some good news I want to tell you"

There is silence; I feel butterflies in my stomach, a mixture of excitement and nervousness about telling him about my new situation. I hear the feet of his heavy desk chair scraping the floor and his footsteps heading in the direction of the stairs. Then he appears at the top of the winding staircase. Looking mostly curious, but a little annoyed as well. "What is it?" he asks me.

"That's not good enough" I tell him teasingly "Come downstairs"

Leader rolls his eyes though he's smiling, and hurries down, taking the steps two at a time.

"Alright, now what is it?" he asks me when he's reached the bottom and is standing directly in front of me.

"It's good to see you too" I say primly "I sure missed you as well."

"You saw me two hours ago Kira" He points out.

"Yeah but then I went out, and was gone for two whole hours. Normally when a person comes back from going out, their significant other greets them."

Leader sighs "Hello dear" he leans over and kisses me briefly "I missed you, did you have a nice time?"

"Better" I say, nodding. "The kiss was a nice touch." He grins.

"I thought so, now, what is this good news?"

"Not yet" I say, holding up my finger. This was a bit of game between us. We played it often. The "Not yet" game. Leader had started it when he had proposed to me. Starting a conversation with "I've got something I want to ask you" or "I've got some big news" and then back peddling and making the other person do ridiculous unnecessary things and making the excitement and curiosity grow. "First I have to answer your question. That's the proper way to go about things."

Leader rolls his eyes again. "That's very rude," I tell him.

"I apologize for being rude" Leader says, his voice slipping into that odd accent he had. Father told me that when he had arrived here it had been very pronounced. "He spoke our language, but his inflection was different, and he used different words for things." He explained "He called a homeplace a dwelling, and never referred to married couples as husband and wife but always spouses, which is a word I've never heard of before. Babies were Newchildren, and elderly were simply the Old. And he didn't use the phrase 'I'm sorry' it's always been 'I apologize'. As he grew up he lost most of it and adopted our manner of speaking, but some of his old phrases still come out from time to time." It was one of the many small things that reminded Kira, and other Villagers, that Leader was not a native. That he, like many others, had come here from somewhere else.

"Now, you asked if I had a good time?" I ask. Leader nods.

"Well the answer it yes, I had a good time. I told you I was going to Market and then to have lunch with Jean's right?"

Again Leader nods.

"Well I lied" I say. He opens his mouth but I stop him "Don't interrupt. That's unbearably rude. I was actually going to Herbalist. As you have been so openly announcing to every Villager that passes through this door, I haven't been feeling very good these past couple of weeks."

Despite my remark about interrupting Leader interrupts "What did Herbalist say about that?"

"He said that it was nothing to worry about. That it was perfectly normal given the circumstances."

"Circumstances?"

I nod "Mhm"

"What circumstances?" Leader asks, he looks completely confused…and then suddenly he doesn't. Something dawns on him; the pieces all start to fall into place in his brain. "Kira are you saying…"

I nod, grinning now. "Congratulations Leader, you're going to be a daddy."

X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_

This is what I get for trying to write a oneshot about Kira announcing her pregnancy to Jonas, now I'm planning on a whole story focusing on Kira's pregnancy.

**As much as I loved Son I still wish that Lowry had clued us in a little bit more on what had had happened in the seven years between Messenger and Son. So in an attempt to answer some of my own questions…this happened. **

**I'm sorry. **


	2. Dreams

_I've been in here before. _I think to myself as I step into the plain immaculate room. I've seen plenty of rooms like this before, back in my community, when I had done volunteer hours at the Nurturing Center and the Hospital, rooms used for physical exams and check-ups. These were simple, undecorated rooms with an examination table and tools used for measuring growth and development. We didn't have anything like them in Village, nothing was so cold and without a personal touch. Even the rooms in the infirmary were well decorated and made to be comforting and comfortable to the invalid staying there. Stepping into this neat orderly room kind of felt like stepping into another planet, or like stepping back in time. I immediately regret coming inside and try to back out. Only I end up backing into someone.

"Opps, watch your step there." A familiar, gentle voice laughs "You almost woke the baby up!"

I whip around and find myself face to face with a man I had hoped I would never see again. He's smiling that same irritatingly pleasant smile that I remember, a smile that I had adored as a child, but grew to hate and by the end had wanted to tear off of his face. "What are you doing in here anywhere? I didn't think they let anyone else in the Releasing Room." He's asking me, his voice is light and unconcerned. I open my mouth to answer him but find that my voice has left me in my shock. He stares at me questioningly for a moment but eventually, when no answer comes to his question he shrugs and turns his attention to the little bundle in his arms. I hadn't noticed it before, I'd been to focused on the man, but I spy it now. It's a small newborn wrapped up in blankets, asleep in the man's arms. Something about the baby is startlingly familiar, but I can't place exactly from where or whom.

The man catches me staring at the child and grins "Cute little guy isn't he?" he's saying. I nod, not trusting myself to speak just yet. "It's a shame we have to release him"

"Release?" I say suddenly, feeling my stomach just tighten at the sound of the word. Their cover up for the murder of children who didn't fit in, people who wouldn't abide by their strict set of rules, and the Old. The man nods looking at me with a mixture of amusement and confusion. "Why else would we be in the releasing room?" he asks.

The releasing room. That's where I was, I remember it now. I'd never actually been in it before, nobody but the released and those who did the releasing were allowed inside these small rooms, but I had seen it before, in a video that the Giver had shown me, of this very man killing a small twin infant. I look again at the small infant in the man's arms, still asleep. Was he perhaps a twin too? "Why is he being released?" I ask the man. He to looks down at the child and gives a small, sad sigh.

"He wasn't made right" he tells me.

"Made right?"

"A birthmother didn't produce him." He clarifies "I don't think its right, punishing this little guy because two people couldn't abide by the rules, but the Committee voted and it was unanimous, he goes."

"That's…..awful." I mutter, instinctively I reach out and smoothen out the baby's dark hair. He looks a lot like… "Who are his parents?"

"He doesn't have any" the man says, making a face "He never got assigned to a family unit."

"No I mean…who created him?"

"Oh" the man shrugs "Well we don't know the man's name, she wouldn't give it to us."

I note that he uses wouldn't, a past tense….could it be "You released her too?"

"I didn't" the man says, he's starting to move around the room, collecting tools as he talks. "But yes, she was released. We can't have someone who would make that big a breech in the rules."

"Who was she?" I ask.

"Her name was Kira. Stella come in here will you?"

_Kira? My sweet Kira?_ I feel the breath stuck in my throat, the room starts to spin, I stagger backward and once again bump into another person. This time its Stella, the man's Nurturing assistant. A clipboard in her arms, she gives me a questioning smile as she passes by. Kira? That was impossible, Kira was safe in Village; I had just seen her this evening in fact…..or was it last evening? But if that was her baby than….

"It's mine." I whisper. The man and Stella look at me, perplexed. "What did you say son?" the man asks.

I stare at the baby in his arms again. I suddenly see it, the baby looks just like my wife. The same dark hair, the same pert little nose and rosy cheeks, and it even wears the same peaceful expression when it sleeps that she did. "The baby is mine."

There is a stunned silence, Stella and the man look at me with shocked faces. The baby….my son, begins to stir. I reach for him but the man steps back, away from my reach. "Father" I say pleadingly "Please….let me have him."

"Stella" he says slowly "Contact the Committee of elders, tell them we've found the man…..tell them it's Jonas."

Stella glances at me warily, like she expects me to try and impede her. "Yes Adam" she says quietly, and then in flash she's gone out the door. It's just me and the man, my Father. We're staring at each other, motionless. The baby's eyes open, and they are the same pale blue eyes as my own. It begins to whimper. Finally my father looks away, down at the baby; he begins to coo nonsense to it, calming it down. For some reason it makes me angry, to see him try to comfort something he was just going to kill later.

"I'm very disappointed Jonas" he says to me after a while.

"You think I care?"

"You should."

"Well I don't."

He looks confused, almost like I'm speaking a foreign language to him. "Why did you do it Jonas?" he asks me. He's struggling to mentally come to terms with all of this, I can see it in his face, he's trying very hard to understand what would drive me to break such a major rule, to disobey a law that seemed, to him, so necessary. "You know that it's against the rules, to create a child on your own, you know its punishment is release…..so why?"

"Because I love her"

The man scoffs "Love" he says, I note for the first time, a hint of bitterness in his otherwise pleasant voice "I thought we had taught you your lesson about that word."

"You told me it's obsolete."

Father nods.

"But you're wrong, it's not obsolete. It's very much alive and well. I found a place where that word, and the emotion it's used to describe, thrives."

"Was she from that place?"

"Yes. I met her there, and we got married-

"Married?"

"She became my spouse."

"She was assigned to you?"

"No. I chose her."

The idea baffles father, but he keeps his mouth shut. It dawns on me that I might be making progress with him. So I continue "I chose her and we became spouses and we were starting a family, our own family."

He looks down at the baby again. The boy is staring up at him with his trusting blue eyes. He smiles, a sad smile. "He looks a lot like you did when you were his age."

It seems a sudden change for my father to make, but I decide to go along "Does he? I think he looks more like his mother" slowly I take a step forward, my father doesn't move.

"Yes, he looks like the female, but there is something about him that just…..reminds me of you."

"Well he is my son" I take another step forward. Again he doesn't try to move away, his eyes are fixed on the baby staring at him. He still looks perplexed, but it's like something is starting to click with him, that there is something he's been missing out on.

"It must be a powerful thing then….love I mean." He says at last.

"It's the most powerful thing in the world" I tell him, starting to creep closer. I was in snatching distance from the baby and my father. I had no idea what I was planning on doing, running maybe? But I had to get that baby, my son, out of here, back to Village where he would be loved and taken care of. My father looks up from the baby, frowns and backs away again, out of my reach. The baby begins to whimper again but this time my father ignores him. He is staring hard at me.

"You know its wrong right" I ask him.

"What's wrong?"

"Release" I say "It's wrong, your killing children father."

He doesn't understand the meaning of the word kill; I can see it in his eyes. No one has ever taught him that that was what he was doing, killing babies. "What's so wrong about it?" he asks me "These children don't fit in; they would ruin the order and lifestyle of the Community. It only makes sense to send them away."

"No it doesn't!" I shout at him "Father you're taking away the lives of children! Why can't you understand that?"

"I'm simply doing what's best for them"

"By murdering them?"

"You're not making any sense again."

I open my mouth to argue with him but suddenly a voice comes in over the intercom. "Adam?" It says. I recognize the voice as the rather cheerful voice of the Giver's Attendant. What had been her name? I'd read it plenty of times on her nametag…Chloe, that was it. Chloe, she was a nice woman, but I always thought she was somewhat simple minded, but then again they all were…to a degree.

My father doesn't take his eyes off of me, he reaches over to the speaker presses a button "Yes Chloe?" he says.

"Is Jonas still with you?" the woman asks.

"Yes"

"Keep him there, we're sending someone there to release him, we just dispatched him."

"Thank you Chloe."

He releases the button and I hear the speaker click off.

"Father" I plead again "Just give me my son."

"He's not yours" he insists "Just because you created him doesn't mean anything."

"Yes it does"

"How?"

"Because I love him!"

"Like you loved the woman?"

"It was a different kind of love….but it's just as strong."

My father shakes his head as if he's trying to shake out all the things I have been telling him. "It seems to me that love is a dangerous thing." He says "Look at what it's done to you Jonas and your family. Your spouse is released, your about to be released and the baby too. A whole family destroyed by love."

I shake my head "Not by love father, by men trying to eradicate it."

I make another grab for the baby who has started to cry now, but my father slips away.

Just then the door opens and two men dressed from head to toe in white enter. One is holding a syringe with a clear liquid inside. I know that they are here for me, that soon I'll be joining my wife in death. I look over at the wailing baby in my father's arms. My heart is breaking; I can't even save him…

"Leader?"

My eyes open. I'm in my room, in Village. _Actually_ to be more precise I'm in my bed in my room in Village. Kira is sitting up, leaning over me, and looking very concerned. I realize that I'm breathing hard and that I'm sweating. The fragments of the dream begin to scatter from my mind and the intense fear that I had felt begins to fade. Kira's there….alive, and I'm far from the man I had once called father. I pull myself up into a sitting position. "I apologize if I woke you." I tell her. Kira shakes her head "Don't worry about it" she says quietly, as if she's afraid to talk too loudly, though considering it's only me and her in this whole house, and we are both awake, the thought of talking to loudly is ridiculous. But that was Kira for you; she did ridiculous things on regular basis. It was why living with her was so much fun. "You were having that nightmare again weren't you?" she asks. I nod. "That's the third time this week dear"

"I know. I'm starting to become afraid of sleeping."

Kira sighs "Do you know what might be causing them?"

I shake my head "No. Normally I don't dream at all."

"No you snore instead." She says teasingly, and then her face becomes serious again. "Do you think it might have something to do with the baby? These nightmares all started shortly after I told you I was pregnant."

"But why these specific dreams?" I ask her "Why am I dreaming about release and my father?"

Kira shifts uncomfortably on the bed. She's about three months along now, and has started to get a baby bump, though you still have to squint and tilt your head a little to see it. But now with the bump comes the discomfort that plagues many expectant mothers. She has to sit in certain positions and lie a certain way and was always complaining about backaches. "I wish I knew the answer Leader" she's saying, her face is all scrunched up and she rubs her lower back a bit. "Perhaps it has to do with you worrying about your paternal abilities?"

"Maybe" I say wanting to be done with subject of the dreams. "Do you want to give you a backrub?"

"Nah" she says with a chuckle "I believe it was a backrub that got me into this situation"

"It certainly got you into a situation last week" I add. Trying to put the troubling dream behind me. She's right, this is the third time this week I've had it, the same exact dream down to the last word exchanged between my father and I. Sometimes it went on longer, and I tried to take the baby and run only to be held back by several men and dragged back into the room. One time I had seen Chloe in the dream too, standing beside the men telling them instructions the Giver had given her. I had strained to listen to the given instructions but she spoke so quietly I couldn't make them out. Always though I woke before they gave me the lethal liquid, though they had sometimes gotten very close to it, and I would wake up screaming or crying or shivering with fear. The dreams were disturbing and troubling, I had no idea what about Kira being pregnant had triggered the dreams, and why it always played out like it did, with me trying to explain love to my father who totally rejected the idea of it. I sigh and close my eyes, but find that images of my father holding the doomed baby are waiting for me. _That won't do. _I think, annoyed. I look over at Kira, still staring at me in concern. "Why we're awake" I suggest "Why don't we have some fun?"

"Ha" Kira gives a humorless laugh "You wish" She lays back down "I'm exhausted and sore and in no mood for your idea of "fun"."

"You're never in the mood for my idea of fun" I pout. Kira gives me a look.

"If that was true I wouldn't be pregnant."

I make a face at her. She giggles "You just don't want to go back to sleep do you?"

"No, not particularly." I admit. She sighs again and pulls herself back up.

"In that case" she says, pulling her hair up and flipping it over her shoulder. "I think I will go for that back rub."

I reach over eagerly but she hits my hands away playfully "But only if you promise that that is all it will be"

"I swear on my honor that this will only be a backrub." I say in mock seriousness. Kira nods and turns her back toward me. Again I reach for her and begin to rub circles around the areas I know she was always complaining hurt now. "When are you going to visit Herbalist again?" I ask her, filling the silence.

"I don't know, I guess when my mixtures run out again." Kira replies "Why?"

"Just wondering. Has anyone else asked you if you're pregnant lately?" We still hadn't made the public announcement yet; Kira wants to wait till she feels sure that she won't miscarry again. But with the belly Kira's starting to get some people, mostly older mothers, were starting to wise up. A few had even discreetly passed on some maternity dresses for Kira to wear, though she was still small enough to fit into her own dresses. Our own friend Savannah, Tyrone's wife, had guessed to and was stitching a little outfit for the baby, leading many in Village to believe that Savannah herself was pregnant again. And Kira's friend Jean who had just gotten engaged had also put two and two together.

"No not really, that old woman Claire, you know her right?"

"The one that lives by herself on the edge of the grove?"

"That's the one. She and I were mending some shirts that belong to the boys from the Lodge and she kind of hinted about it, but I'm not sure if she knows or not."

"But no one new that knows for sure?"

Kira shakes her head "No, but Savannah gave me some more dresses."

I laugh "You're going to be the best dressed woman in Village these next six months."

"And I'm not already?" she asks mischievously.

"Of course you are" I reply "Don't go reading into something that not's there."

She laughs but says nothing more, and neither do I for a while. Instead I focus on the backrub and she…well to be honest I don't know what she's doing. After a while though she says

"Hey Leader?"

"Mhm?"

"I changed my mind"

"About what?"

"About wanting this to be just a backrub."

I grin "I was hoping you would."

She snorts but turns and faces me and takes my hand and kisses me.

It wasn't long until I completely forgot about that horrifying dream.


End file.
